As a father, husband, teacher, coach, man, writer, jack Lutheran, late-mid-life-elder, ne'er do well, and espresso addict I find myself tethered to more responsibility, commitment, and distraction than, as a younger man, I thought I would carry. So I write this wonderfully encumbered surprise of a life that I have been given. I see grace and I see atrocity; I respond writing odes to what I love and rants against what I abhor. If I lived in a cave I would paint these on the wall.

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Credo for a Bag of Bones

This bag of bones and gristle called me is an expression of love and life. It is not afraid. It heals wounds. At its best, it acts out of love, always love. It does not cling to ephemera. It lets go again and again. Its greatest passion is surrender. When it knows who it truly is, it is not afraid to die, or to get lost,or to feel pain, or to go without. It is sustained by what is provided. It loves who it is in this crazy form but does not identify or need to defend that which doesn't really exist, which is an insane illusion. It dances to the story it has composed about what is good. It loves most those who have helped it grow, who have seen the soul illuminated beneath the cover of skin. It forgives itself for being blind, for believing that it is not connected to all that has gone before and all that is yet to come, for failing to marvel in awe at the gift of this tiny, one-off, never to be seen again assembly of dust forged in the furnace of dying stars.

About Me

Poems and narrative essays function in ways other kinds of writing cannot. They are living things that raise the heart rate while raising questions. Not all delight, but most can kick. I toss these out there into the cyber ethers, the e-oceans, with hope that they are found and heard by someone somewhere.